


Stolen things

by Bitterblue



Series: Experimental Theology [7]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Orphan Black AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1878051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew what was coming in the moment before Rachel pulled the small bundle of velvet from her pocket. Of course she would be carrying it. Its case was a dull gold in this light, and the hands were in a different position than when Cosima had last used it. She wondered briefly how many questions Rachel had posed, how many answers she had received, how much she had understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen things

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblr user stelmarias, the reason I watched OB and the only person who might love HDM more than I do.

_The sky was dark with clouds and bodies, hail and shouting striking her with equal force as she tried to duck under a rocky outcrop and away from the storm. Leontes was somewhere not too far away, though she had lost track of him in her scramble away from the camp. He still didn't trust her. She supposed that was how it would be for a while, but the adults' daemons seemed to be willing to trust, and she would just have to be patient while they both grew up._

_Her dress caught on a rock and tore, the hem jagged and rough as the fabric split. She muttered a swear she knew would be thoroughly unapproved by any of the adults. Well, they couldn't exactly reprimand her now._

_It had been an ambush. They had stayed in this place for a few nights, hunting and singing. She had been allowed to try flying, just a little. But tonight when they came back to their camp, there were men with pistols. They were not unaccustomed to war, these witches, and men meant governments and churches and all the things that hated and feared them. They had scattered just as the clouds broke open and a steady mix of sleet and hail began to pellet the earth, their arrows soon mixing in the volley, and the combustion of bullets in return. From her place out of the way, she made herself as small as she could and watched. They would be alright. Her family were always alright._

_A flutter at her side tore her attention away from the battle. Leontes, in his moth form. He had come to her, they were mending, she would be forgiven. "There is someone_  coming— _" he whispered, terrified. A darker shadow in the murk solidified, his steps harsh and grinding on the gravel. She couldn't see his face, but she caught the glimmer of scales at his shoulder. What sort of adult didn't have a bird for a daemon? She tried to shrink further under the rock and away from sight._

_He saw her anyway. A glimmer of firelight illuminated his face as he turned, and she saw he was already old, though she had no sense of age in the way humans measured it. The clean pate of his head gleamed as much as the smooth scales of his snake daemon. She did not like this man. She had not met many men, but this one, she was sure, she did not like._

_He crouched down, trying to make himself less threatening. "Rachel," he said, and she wondered how he knew her name, "Come out from under there. Please. I need to speak to you." Leontes pressed himself to her neck, the flutter of his wings matching her pulse. "Rachel, your mother has died in this senseless battle, and you need to be taken care of."_

_"I have aunts."_

_He laughed. For the first time, Rachel thought she might understand what cold felt like. "No, my dear, you don't. Now, come with me and we can get you some dinner and a new dress. You've still got your daemon with you? Good. Good girl." His face darkened. "I can pull you from under there if I must, but I don't think you'll make me. No. You won't. You're a good girl. I'm terribly sorry your mother is dead. She asked me to take care of you before she died."_

_Confusion mixed with panic in her stomach, a roil of discomfort. Her mother would never ask a man to take her daughter. Her mother would want one of her aunts to watch her if anything bad ever happened. With a start, she realized the rain of arrows had ended. Only ice fell from the sky, now. She could see dark shapes she thought might be bodies in the soft glow of their firepit. Was her mother among them? They would not have stopped fighting unless they were dead. Her mother might be dead. Her mother might be dead. Her mother might be_  dead.

_She hesitated, then crawled out of her hiding spot, standing and flinching as the hail hit her skin. The man reached out and offered his hand. "I am Professor Aldous Leekie, my child, and you may think of me as your father, in time."_

 

"I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have a sister." Cosima stood with her arms crossed, Prospero between her feet. Part of her noticed as Delphine moved to close the door, but most of her was fixed upon the witch-woman wearing her face. It was eerie, how much they looked alike, the obvious similarity sneaking past the rational parts of herself and planting the tiniest seed of doubt.

"You don't have a sister that you know," Rachel corrected mildly. "Do you remember your mother?"

"She died in childbirth." Rachel's expression bordered patronizing and pity; it made Cosima want to shout, to run from the room. Delphine was still standing at the door, an unintentional blockade.  _Trapped between one liar and another._

"No, she didn't. Our father stole you when you were an infant, but he couldn't get both of us. I stayed with our mother until she...she was killed. By the Magisterium." She looked briefly pained. It made something mirrored ache deep in Cosima's chest.  _Don't feel sorry for her, she is trying to trick you, none of this can be true because if it were then your life is a_  lie. "But she spoke about you, she made sure I knew that I had a twin. She wanted to come get you, but it wasn't safe."

Whatever Cosima had been about to say was interrupted by the tap of beak against glass and Rachel striding to the window to allow in a crow. Her daemon, presumably. He fixed Cosima with an unblinking gaze and said something softly to his person. Rachel glanced to Delphine, leaning against the door with Laurent at her feet, a protective barrier between herself and the other women, her face awash with confusion and shades of betrayal. Cosima followed her gaze, then huffed a breath and flicked her eyes to the floor.

"We can't give you the alethiometer back just yet. It's a tool I've been trying to lay hands upon for years, one I've done a great deal of scholarship to be able to use properly. I believe that we were split apart because the Magisterium was concerned with matters of Dust." She laughed, and it was ice. "Control of Dust is control of life; they want to be in control. We were an experiment, you and I. Raised by humans and raised by witches, I think to determine if your daemon would have the same properties as witch daemons. They don't know about the process, of course, and I never told them how it's done, so they've believed it was some inherent gift of blood, to separate yourself from your daemon. I believe you must have been a disappointment."

"It hurts," interrupted a mild voice that Cosima realized with a start was Rachel's daemon. He didn't sound the way she thought a crow daemon should, but he did sound awfully like Prospero. It made Prospero lean back against her shins, his discomfort palpable. "Though that wouldn't stop them. I hear they tried to separate daemons and their people once with knives." Prospero shuddered.

"I have reason to believe the Magisterium is proceeding with attempts to...replicate humans. Create duplicates, on the premise that they would not have daemons of their own if they are copies of existing people. I've exhausted my resources to try to clarify what, exactly, is going on, and I need the alethiometer to help me from here." Rachel took another step closer to Cosima, and Cosima took another step back; her knees pressed against Delphine's bed and she sat with a soft exhale. "You could help. Your professor, the one who owned the alethiometer, she could help us. This is something we were meant to discover together, I'm sure of it."

"So you think you can just send her," Cosima gestured to Delphine, who shrank a little further into the door, "to steal from me, and I'm going to help you?" Cosima shook her head, the bun beginning to loosen. "Give it to me. I need to take it home. They already know it's missing."

"And I've told you I can't do that," Rachel persisted. She pressed her hand to her forehead in a gesture that made the little seed of doubt take root in Cosima's heart; her own fingers itched to do the same. After a moment, she sighed. "I'll prove it to you."

She knew what was coming in the moment before Rachel pulled the small bundle of velvet from her pocket.  _Of course she would be carrying it_. Its case was a dull gold in this light, and the hands were in a different position than when Cosima had last used it. She wondered briefly how many questions Rachel had posed, how many answers she had received, how much she had understood. She spared Delphine a brief glance, and was surprised to see the tall woman staring not at the alethiometer but at her daemon in a silent conversation. Too much was happening all at once; Cosima wanted to watch Delphine and Rachel both.  _Lovesick fool_ , she could practically  _hear_  Prospero thinking at her,  _watching Delphine was what got us into this mess_.

There wasn't exactly an honest retort to be made.

Instead, she leaned forward to look at the alethiometer again. Rachel set the hands confidently, as Cosima had only seen the Professor do before. She had not been lying about the study, at least.

"Let's start with an easy one." She showed Cosima the dial, the hands pointed to the baby, elephant, and bird. Her mouth quirked briefly into a half smile, the faintest hint of self-deprecation lingering in the corners. "I can't puzzle through anything more complex without my books and I rather doubt you'll let me go fetch them. So. The baby—us. The elephant is family. And the bird is witches. So, then. Is Cosima my sister, Dust?"

It came almost instantly, not like before. Alpha and omega. Baby. Alpha and omega. Baby. The needle swung in single jumps back and forth, hypnotic. Rachel made a self-satisfied noise that Cosima only half noticed. The answer was unmistakable in its clarity. The alethiometer was wrapped again and tucked into Rachel's pocket.

"This doesn't mean I trust you."

Rachel's expression twisted her mouth into a brittle smile, all teeth and no warmth. "No. Of course. I'll go. We'll talk tomorrow." She stepped quickly to the door, her daemon on her shoulder. Delphine moved quickly out of her way, keeping a clear berth around the dark haired woman. As she did, Cosima felt Laurent settle himself near enough to Prospero to touch.

The door closing behind Rachel was loud in the tense silence she left in her wake. Laurent whined again, a pitiful noise; Delphine looked mostly embarrassed.

"Cosima," she started.

"No. I don't trust you, either." The anger welled up in her, and she crossed her arms over her chest—to hold herself together or to keep from lashing out, she wasn't sure. "You acted like my friend, and you kissed me, and you—Laurent—you  _touched_  us and you  _used me_. How am I supposed to trust you now? I can't."

Delphine raked her fingers through her hair, curls scattering in their wake and at least two pins dropping with gentle  _clinks_  to the floor. "I am sorry, Cosima, I didn't think...I don't know what I thought. Aldous promised me a lab of my own if I got the thing for him, so I did. I didn't know Rachel wanted it, I didn't know she was your sister—"

"She is  _not_ my sister. Not in any way that counts."

"I didn't know she was your sister," Delphine repeated wearily. "I didn't know you had it until after I was kissing you. The kissing came first. I wanted you first, sin or no."

"How am I supposed to believe that?"

"Because you felt it too! You felt it, Cosima, it was real and it was good and I…"

The shock of it sent her reeling, fingers twisting in the sheets in an attempt to steady herself. Laurent pressed his nose to her shin for a second time in as many moments with a contrite whine.

"Stop it," Cosima hissed. "This is  _manipulative_  and I would say I can't believe it except you clearly get off on manipulating the hell out of me." Prospero hissed, but did not move to touch the other daemon. Delphine blushed.

"Laurent, stop." He moved, just enough to no longer be touching. "I'm sorry, Cosima. I am. I don't know how to prove it to you."

"Maybe you can't." She shrugged, standing. Prospero stepped between herself and Laurent. Cosima walked uneasily to the door, not quite believing Laurent wouldn't reach for her again.

"You have to trust someone."

"No. I don't." The door was easy to open and easier to slam behind herself, leaving Cosima blinking in the sun. It was only mid-afternoon, though she felt like it had been years inside that room surrounded by the smell of Delphine mixed with existential dread.  _My whole life has been a lie_. She straightened herself, reaching up to repin her hair in its bun, and strode back onto campus. There would be a place for her to stay the night in the city around the university. And tomorrow there would be more Rachel.  _And_ , a traitorous part of her thought,  _more Delphine._

 

The next morning dawned crisp and bright. Cosima found herself up at first light, watching the sun pour over the rooftops and stonework from her little window in her little room in the city proper. Bathed in soft orange and red, the buildings lost some of their hard edges and coldness. The earliest trucks were already out, delivering milk and eggs and kicking dust into the air. Caught in beams of light, she could almost pretend the dust was more Dust than not, glowing with intent and purpose.

After dressing and breakfast, she meandered her way back to the university. Rachel might be unwilling to give the alethiometer back, but perhaps she would be willing to bargain for it. Prospero, evidently feeling more like himself than he had since Delphine had turned up in the Professor's office, jumped in leaf piles and bounded over hedges as they walked, his laugh drawing hers out. "You're acting like a kitten!" He laughed again and went to jump onto a low wall, but hesitated. A crow sat at the edge, and though his expression was difficult to determine he gave the distinct air of disapproval.

"I'll take you to Rachel," he said, and the laugh that had been in her throat stuck. He didn't wait for a response before taking flight and heading deep into the university grounds, landing on a lamppost and waiting expectantly. Morning suddenly gone sour, Cosima and Prospero trudged after the crow in silence.

To Cosima's genuine surprise, Delphine was inside of the room the crow indicated when they had crossed to a large building. It was clearly a study of some sort, crowded with books and with a large desk taking up most of a wall by a stained glass window. "Oh, good, you're here," came Rachel's voice as she pushed the door further open and stepped inside. Delphine looked pale and unhappy. Cosima ignored her.

"I'm sorry, I tried to convince her to give it back to you but she—" Delphine began.

"Close the door, Cosima," interrupted Rachel, her hand raised to stop Delphine speaking. "Have you decided to come assist me, then?"

Cosima did shut the door, then turned to face her not-quite-sister and not-quite-friend. "Yes. Conditionally."

Rachel scoffed. "Fine, name it."

"I keep the alethiometer. You can use it, when necessary, but it stays with me. We're going to Bern, letting the Professor know—if she can help us, she will, but only if I'm with you and only if  _I_  ask her." The crow daemon cawed a derisive laugh. "I'm serious. Those are my conditions." She felt something too familiar shudder up her spine; a glance to the floor revealed Laurent still and Prospero easing against his side. "And Delphine is coming with us," she added.

She wondered if she looked quite as sour as Rachel when annoyed, but after an uncomfortable silence the other woman retrieved the alethiometer from her pocket and proffered it. "Accepted." Cosima took it; the weight and warmth were welcome and familiar. "I need to arrange my things to go. I suspect Delphine does as well. We will leave tomorrow on the first train?"

Cosima nodded, and Delphine whispered, "Yes," and it was clear they were dismissed from her presence as Rachel turned away from them. They stepped back out into the bright morning sunshine.

"You want me to come with you." It wasn't a question, not really. Laurent thumped his tail against Prospero's side.

"I don't really trust you to stay here. I don't know what you'd do, or who you'd tell, and I'd rather have a liar like you by my side than not." She shrugged, walking away from Rachel's study, and felt Delphine follow.

"I offered to go with her, if she would give it back to you," Delphine said; the earnestness in her voice felt too familiar.  _But I_ want. Cosima didn't quite believe Delphine had been lying, then or now. She breathed deeply, feeling the ache of her lungs expanding full of the cold air and watching her exhalations momentarily condense. There was nothing she could say, no promises she could make, in response. With a little twitch of her head, something not quite  _no_ , Cosima walked away from the campus and into the city.

  
The cabin Rachel had acquired for them was small, leaving Cosima and Delphine pressed thigh to thigh with Rachel nearly bumping their knees across from them. Prospero sat on Cosima's lap, her hand absently petting and soothing, with Laurent behind their feet under the seat. Rachel's crow perched on their luggage in the space on the seat next to Rachel. Cosima paid none of it any mind, her eyes fixed firmly on the world outside as it rushed past. Soon, they would be in Bern. Soon, they might have answers. The weight of the alethiometer felt comforting, familiar against her knee as the train rushed away from everywhere she had been and into the unknown.


End file.
